


The Sound Of The Broken Pieces

by TrashCan_Inc



Category: Deadmau5 (Musician), Gerard Way - Fandom, My Chemical Romance, Professional Griefers (Music Video)
Genre: Angst, Character Development, Gen, Lore - Freeform, Mecha, Post traumatic, Post-Apocalyptic, Robot Fights, Robots, Sort of? - Freeform, Trauma, Worldbuilding, fighter robots, i’m just tagging this as mcr so it’s easier to find, post apocalyptic, post music video, really just me developing lore from what i remember of the pro griefers vid, self-invalidation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-06 04:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14634509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashCan_Inc/pseuds/TrashCan_Inc
Summary: G3rard has never been quite the same since the bot crashes...





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write a drabble playing around with what I remember of the Professional Griefers video! I started slowly coming up with some sort of lore for it, developing my version of the character of “G3rard”, and I think I might play around with this universe more at some point, and add more chapters! This was fun!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

“Okay. Keep your cool. It’s just like an arcade game, right?”

Right?

G33 was reassuring himself as he sat before the control panel, his heart in his chest and his fingers tentatively gripping the joysticks. The lights were dimmed, and the room was empty, save for G3rard, the colossal robots, and the catastrophic arrangement of wires and panels and seats and monitors across the space.

“ _I’m just getting a feel for it, y’know?_ ” is what he told them when he’d requested access to the arena outside of ‘Working Hours’. It’s not like he could actually get any harmless _practicing_ done with the real bots; they built special scaled-down models specifically for that purpose, so kids wouldn’t destroy things outside of the actual sponsored matches. And they sure as hell weren’t going to switch on the power just for him - electricity was expensive and rare, and one guy wasn’t worth it, especially outside of peak mandated Power Hours. The electricity restrictions had been in place since The Times, and would probably be in place for the next few decades, no matter the government’s assurances that there was no Power Drought.

And G33 sighed.

He was kind of telling the truth, in a way, about “getting a feel for it”. Sort of. He did need to get used to being back in the chair, to being at the controls, to having those gargantuan robots... _very_ close to where he sat...

The truth was, it just wasn’t as casual as “getting a feel for it” made it sound. Not by a long shot. He wasn’t some athlete returning from a nice vacation and in need of a little warmup. He was someone with a crippling fear of those robots falling and crushing his body. _Again_.

And... okay, this was clearly not the recommended way to deal with his own bullshit. He knew that. He’d been to therapy and trauma counselling and group sessions and what felt like hundreds of thousands of thousands of _freaking hospital rooms_ and dear _god_ he didn’t need to _hear_ it anymore at this point, he _**got**_ it. He had the criss-crossing of scars, making a pattern across his whole body, to remind him for the rest of his natural life not to take this shit lightly.

But he was tired. He was tired of seeing the guys at therapy who lost their minds and wellness to more important tragedies, like from the structures that fell during the Shift of Power. He was tired of remembering the naïve child he was when he saved up his pocket money from hundreds of paper runs to finally buy his first little fighter bot, thinking he was gonna make money for his family (and most importantly, himself) with bot fights one day. Like he was gonna become a big success story and then be set for life. He was tired of remembering when he did become a big-shot; he’d become the kinda guy people would expend all their electricity and lights on, just to watch him _glow_. And he had been such a fucking idiot, soaking in all the praise and revelling in the attention and stealing all the kisses, when he could’ve been smart. He probably could’ve noticed whatever caused the bot crashes before it even happened. Invent a time machine, take him back to that moment, and he’d probably be able to find it now.

But instead, since time travel didn’t exist, he wanted to make sure it didn’t happen a second time. So here he was, over-analysing the controls in front of him with shaking fingers, breathing heavily in the soundless room, and staring up at the ever-so-slightly illuminated robots. He tilted his head back a bit, let his eyes travel what felt to him like miles and miles, up to where the bots’ heads were, and took in how the robots towered over mere mortals. His eyes started getting funny with depth perception after a few minutes, letting him almost feel like the robots were craning over above him...

And before he knew it, he found himself crumpled in a heap on the cold corridor floor outside, face flushed and scrunched and wet, cries escaping his throat, either sounding like shrieks, or so tightly wound with emotion that they didn’t make sounds at all. His fingers gripped his long-unwashed mop of caramel hair, almost in danger of ripping out chunks, since it was the only thing keeping him from instinctively scratching at the cross-hatching of scars where the doctors had basically frankenstein’d him back together.

It would’ve almost been funny to him. With the right resources, bots were so easy to repair, good as new, like nothing happened. Human bodies, not so much. G3rard’s mind was cursed to confront him time and time again with how small and breakable he was, how he truly was not like one of the robots he controlled, no matter how high and mighty he used to feel.

And eventually, after what felt like a millennium-long breakdown, he did his best to pull himself up, grunting as he stretched his shaking limbs, picking up his satchel and carelessly swinging it over his back.

“Get it together G3rard,” he mentally scolded himself. “It’s just like an arcade game, and you’re just being a pussy”. That’s what he figured other competitors would tell him. Probably his friends too. _He_ sure believed it.

After all, other people had it worse, right?


	2. Ramen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing around in this universe again! Hi!

The streets were dark. Of course they were. Always

G3 made his way home in the usual fashion, getting light from the occasional store window. Pedestrians had to arrange any nighttime walks to be through streets that could afford the lights.

If you were driving, you could use your headlights and the reflector bits on the road. But G3 didn’t have a car. He couldn’t handle a car.

Then there was the usual schedule: get inside the apartment as quickly as possible; double lock the doors; use the cellphone light to scan every corner of the room for hiding intruders; light a candle and sit down once satisfied; suddenly remember the body needs FOOD and the always-empty fridge won’t cut it; get out and buy food from the little shop downstairs; come back to the apartment; wash, rinse, and repeat some of the first steps.

“I don’t know if you always just like pretending that old dinosaur works, or if your brain actually sees special things I don’t, but whatever floats your boat, pal,” RatRace chuckled from behind the counter, setting up the candles and watching G3 slouch over an ancient arcade machine in the corner of the shop.

“I just like fiddling with the buttons,” G3 smirked. “It’s kinda satisfying, y’know? Like closing a drawer, or watching those slime videos, or like that feeling you get when a tape goes into the VHS player...”

RatRace made a fleeting attempt at stifling a laugh. “G, my man, you aren’t fucking _old_ enough to have been playing VHS tapes.”

“My mom had them!” G said, throwing his arms up in the air and finally turning around. “She used to show me the old cartoons she recorded on them! Didn’t your folks have any?!”

Rat shrugged. “My folks had DVD’s already, man. Not my fault you’re old.”

“We’re like the same age, Rat. Just because you _look_ like a baby doesn’t mean you are one.”

“Eat my entire ass.”

“I’m not your datefriend.”

Rat made an exaggerated mock-gasp. “G3rard!! Talking about me and my datefriend like that?! In _my_ store? When I have been nothing but a kind and understanding to your needy broke ass??”

“Few months ago you sold me expired ramen.”

“Bitch I sold everyone expired ramen that week, if you were a true friend, you’d have contacted my supplier like a beleaguered soccer mom!”

G3 gave a slight chuckle and picked up a packet of ramen from the shelf. Truth be told, he had no idea how managing a shop like Rat’s worked, but at least he rested easily with the knowledge that Rat definitely didn’t know either.

“Hey G, you free tonight by the way? Wanna hang out or something? I tried to stop by at your place earlier, but you weren’t home.”

“Oh yeah I was... out...”

“Therapy sesh? Did ya get a job interview? Is my buddy-chum-pal out there being professional??” he gave G3 an encouraging wink and nudge.

G3 sighed. “Actually I was out by... the bot centre...”

“ _Oh_.”

Rat wrung his hands together awkwardly, before gently asking if he could ring up G3’s order. G3 knew Rat wasn’t very savvy on BotFight culture, having never watched a match on TV unless he knew his buddy-chum-pal was in it, but he just knew about G3’s... sensitive relationship with it.

He could probably rest assured knowing G3 didn’t really know anything about it anymore either.

Rat asked again if he could come over, maybe sleep over if G3 wanted, and G3rard had to resist the urge to say “no”; he genuinely wanted Rat to come over, but his brain always made him resist the idea of enjoying himself these days, making him say he was “busy” when really he was just sitting in the dark and contemplating life and feeling sorry for himself.

So G and Rat sat on the floor of his apartment and ate cheap ramen, Rat playing music and talking about silly things and avoiding any and all mention of robots.

And when Rat lay on the couch to sleep, and G3 lay on the floor by him because “I’m just too lazy to go all the way to bed, man”, RatRace told G3 that he could rest easy knowing that he’d checked the corners of the apartment for him, so he wouldn’t have to.


End file.
